Monday, June 06, 2005

Bull McCabe's: No; Kabin Bar: Yes

My friend Brian and I are writing a musical about Lyndon LaRouche, infamous economic eccentric and political crackpot (or so "they" will have you believe). We usually meet up on Sunday afternoons, which isn't easy to do in Manhattan because so few places are open then. For awhile we'd been going to Bull McCabe's on St. Marks Place. They bill themselves as "An Irish Pub" and in addition to their James Joyce poster, they hang both Mets and Yankees logos in their front window. Seemed like the right place for a couple of Micks like us, hacking away at our lap top. We were raised right so week after week we tipped well and said "please" and "thank you." We even cleared our table every time. But the woman tending bar treated us like a pair of drooling derelicts, turning off the charm that flowed so easily for other customers and refusing to tune into Mets games (even with no one else in the bar--"Someone asked to watch the NBA playoffs later"). So yesterday we tried a new place, the Kabin bar, near East Fifth Street. $2 cans of Reingold, Mets on one screen, Bronx Bombers on the other, and a friendly bartender who noticed us rooting for the Mets. When we bought the next round she said she liked Mets fans, said they were more blue collar.

Genna, bartender: I'd rather have bar full of Mets fans than a bar full of stockbrokers. People with expense accounts never tip as well as people who pay in cash.

Me: So you'd rather have a roomful of Mets fans than a roomful of Yankees fans?

Genna: No, I wouldn't say that necessarily, but the Mets fans are more blue collar.

Okay, couldn't hurt to try, but you can read between the lines: Mets fans are better. Now it's time for the Mets faithful to realize how asinine it is to chant "Yankees Suck!" when the Mets are playing the Giants. Or Phillies, or Marlins, etc.